


An unexpected guest

by kitbug



Series: Three!verse - Another side, another story [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Modern Thedas, Sisters, but from other misters, how the FUcK do i tag this, it's like a companion fic, to ellstersmash's three
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-23 22:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16627298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitbug/pseuds/kitbug
Summary: Athi Lavellan pays her "sister" a visit to catch up with her and decompress from everything that's happened the last several months.





	An unexpected guest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EllsterSMASH](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllsterSMASH/gifts).



> A long time ago, I told [ EllsterSMASH](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllsterSMASH/pseuds/EllsterSMASH) that if she needed a family member for her fic, [Three](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11708565/chapters/26368032), Ren would be happy to fill in. Ell included her in the fic, and I was flattered and excited, so... this happened.
> 
> If you haven't read it yet and you like mutual pining and Solavellan nonsense, you totally should!!!!  
> This here is fanfic for a fanfic. We're in fanfic-inception here folks. Enjoy, I guess. XD

Someone was in her house.  The lights were on, and she could smell woodsmoke.  Whoever it was had made themselves right at home.

Why hadn’t her mabari sounded the alarm?  Where the hell was he?

She turned back towards the barn and strode past it to the small equipment shed.  In the dim light cast by the lantern overhanging the barn door, she fumbled for the keyhole on the padlock.  Quietly, she eased the door open, flinching slightly at the high pitched whine of rust. A freshly-sharpened machete hung from the inside of the door.  She grabbed it and locked the shed.

Unwanted guests were not a problem she _often_ had to deal with, this far out in the woods, but it did happen more often than she liked.  Usually, it was some frat boy shems from Wycome who got drunk and decided to go hiking. Harmless, but stupid.  Still, it didn’t hurt to be armed if they had less than innocent intentions.

And maybe if she gave them a good enough scare, they’d fuck off for good this time.

She carefully stuck to the shadows, her soft footsteps soundless on the dewy grass.  Her phone on her hip buzzed, but that could wait. She watched the windows warily for any sign of movement and kept her ears cocked for any sound, but there was none.  

Strange.

She approached front door and was slightly startled to find it still locked. How had they gotten in?  Did she need to worry about her windows now?

She unlocked the door and slipped inside quietly.  She still couldn’t hear anyone talking, or any noise at all other than the gentle pop of pine sap in the fire in the next room.  Hugging the wall, she peered around the corner to find the intruder lying across the hearth, pillowed on her traitorous mabari. She rolled her eyes.  So much for having a guard dog.

The machete fell from her hand and stood straight up in a crack in the floorboards when a flicker of flame revealed just who was lounging in her house on her dog.  The noise startled them both upright.

“Athi?!”

“Ren!”  Athi pushed herself up off the floor but froze when she saw machete sticking out of the floor. “Ren, what the fuck?”

“I didn’t know it was you!”  She pulled the blade out and laid it on the counter.  “I thought someone broke into my house.”

“Well, I mean, technically I _did_.  You should really get some locks on your windows.”  Athi wove her way through the furniture in the small living room.  “I sent you a text before I left this afternoon. Did you not get it?”

Ren pulled the phone from the holster on her hip and flipped it open.  Athi’s text was there, but the notification was only five minutes old--when she’d come up the hill.  “My reception is _shit_.”  She slammed it closed and pulled Athi in for a big hug.  “But whatever, you’re here and you’re you and not a drunk frat boy!”

“I’m not--”  Athi chuckled in her ear as she returned the hug.   “Just _what_ has been going on around here?”

“Nothing I can’t handle. But it doesn’t matter!”  She drew back and gestured to the sofa for Athi to take a seat while she rummaged in the cabinet.  “Talk to me! What the hell have you been up to since you visited last year?” Ren had issued an open invitation to visit and catch up, with her phone and internet as shitty as it was.  She hadn’t expected Athi to show up before the weekend, but then she rarely did what was expected.

Athi let out a throaty groan as she sank into the cushions.  “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Start at the beginning, then.”  Ren popped the cork off a bottle of red and joined her with a pair of glasses.  “I don’t know what you’ve been up to since you got that job at the bar.”

“I met this guy.  Solas.” Athi nodded her thanks and took the glass. She drained half of it before continuing.  “Creators, Ren, he…”

Ren listened quietly as it tumbled out, prompting for details that got lost in the shuffle and keeping their glasses full.  Athi told her about the man with stormy eyes that had gone from a simple curiosity for her to an obsession. The crushing disappointment when she’d thought him taken.  The subsequent drunk hook-up that turned into a mistake that turned into a boyfriend and an even bigger mistake. The camping trip. The party. How it seemed he wanted her.  That she wanted him so badly, but was so afraid of fucking up again.

She’s changed, Ren thought.  Athi had never shown much fear about such risks before.

\--

Ren woke to her mabari whining and nudging her with a cold, wet nose.  She blinked, bleary and confused, in the broad sunlight that cascaded through large bay window in the living room.  She usually woke before the sun rose, especially now that the days were growing shorter. The empty bottle of wine on the coffee table explained her dry mouth and sloth.  The head of dark hair pillowed on her chest and tan willowy arms wrapped tight around her explained the empty bottle. Athi. She smiled, lopsided, and remembered waking in a similar position before, when she’d been a teenager and Athi so much smaller.

They weren’t sisters, not by blood, but they may as well have been.

Athi, thankfully, slept like the dead and barely roused as Ren slithered out from under her and settled her on a pillow.  After working the crick out of her neck, she put on a pot of coffee and fed the dog while it brewed. She left a note for Athi that there was food in the fridge, and to join her at the barn after she’d risen and eaten.  There was no rush for Athi, but Ren wasn’t so lucky. The animals weren’t going to feed themselves.

A few hours and many chores later, Athi arrived at the barn.  She’d bound her hair in a messy bun, dressed in a borrowed flannel, and carried two mugs of coffee.  They sat on a bench outside the barn, and Ren caught her up on family goings on. It had been an unusually good year for them, no major problems, a couple marriages, many healthy babies.  The herds were fit, and the crops were plentiful. The rise in shem fads calling for “natural food” had been a boon for their clan, and they’d expanded their markets in Wycome and Starkhaven.

“Your dad’s doing well.  I saw him last week. Little bit grayer, little bit slower, but he looked good.”  She gave Athi a sly sideways glance. “You should call him sometime. He misses you.”

Athi flushed, guilty, and mumbled that she’d do it soon.

Ren let it slide and polished off the coffee.  She set the mug on the bench, stood and stretched.  “I don’t know what kind of plans you had today--” Athi shook her head and shrugged.  “--but I need to go check on the herd. We had some very late babies, and it’s gotten cold a lot earlier this year. You wanna come?” she asked from just inside the door.

Athi’s eyes lit up at the thought of baby halla.  They narrowed when she emerged with a hackamore looped over arm.  “You’re trying to get me to go riding with you again, aren’t you?”

Ren laughed whistled loudly for Falon.  The hart bleated loudly from across the field in response and trotted over.  “Just a short one. Like half an hour. Otherwise we have to walk forever, they’ve been staying by the river in the valley lately.  And then we’d have to walk back.”

“If I say yes, will you finally go on a ride with me on _my_ steed?”

“Hell no.”  She pull the bridle over his head and looped the reins over his neck.  “Riding a hart in the middle of nowhere is nothing compared to barreling down the road at 70 miles an hour with nothing but leather to save your ass, and you well know it.”

“We wouldn’t go _that_ fast…”

“Nope, forget it.”  Ren pulled a saddle off the rack and heaved it onto his back, cinching the girth tight.  He grunted but otherwise stood placidly. “It’s not you that I don’t trust, it’s everyone else on the road.”

“I guess that’s fair, but you’re still chicken.”

“Better chicken than roadkill.”  Ren half-vaulted, half-pulled herself up over the tall hart’s back.  She pointed to a bag just inside the barn that she’d readied that morning.  “Toss me that?”

Athi obliged and passed it up.  “What’s in the bag?”

“Blankets for the fawns to wear.”  She secured it to the back of the saddle and offered her hand down.  “So, are you coming? You haven’t said no yet. You can stay here and relax if you want.”

Athi sighed heavily but accepted the hand and climbed on behind her.  “At least he’s not a goddamn horse.”

Once they were settled, Ren clucked to her hart and he set off at a ground-devouring walk.  Athi’s arms tightened around her waist like a vice when they lurched into motion, but gradually relaxed when it became clear that was as fast as they were going to go.  It was a perfect day for a ride, clear and crisp and the leaves were well into their fall hues.

“I’ve been thinking about what you told me last night.”

Athi stiffened against her back.  “Yeah?”

“Do you remember how you felt before you finally made the decision to just get up and go?”

“I hated it.  I felt so stuck.  Stagnant. _Trapped_.”

“And one day, you just got your things and struck out.  And it was rocky at first. It took awhile to find somewhere to settle down.  But it all worked out, right?”

“Yeah.  It did.”

“So, what’s stopping you from taking the plunge and going after this Solas guy?”

“I don’t know.  I can’t just _ask_ him to be with me.”  Athi’s forehead pressed into the back of her shoulder.

“Well, you could, but you don’t _have_ to.  Just spend more time with him, take him up on that dance, and see where it goes.  It’ll take some work, but anything worth having usually does.”

“What if I fuck it up again and this turns into another mistake and I hurt him?”

“That’s life.  There’s a chance it won’t work out.”  Ren reached back and gave her leg a comforting squeeze.  “But won’t you hate it more if you never even try?”

If Athi had a response, it was lost in the loud greeting Falon bleated out to the herd of halla as they crested the hill leading into the river valley.  Thirty-some white heads rose in unison to look, but most returned to their grazing when they realized there was nothing to be concerned about. A few of the more outgoing ones approached for the treats they knew were coming.  Downy young fawns trailed behind them, curiosity overriding caution.

Ren slid out of the saddle and reached up to help Athi down.

“Just think about it.  And in the meantime, you can help me wrestle a pack of squirming halla fawns into these blankets.”

**Author's Note:**

> you know you've made it as a writer when people are writing fanfiction for your fanfiction. ;)
> 
> Love you, Ell!!!! Keep doing what you're doing, cuz you're amazing! ♥


End file.
